John Cale

The Velvet Underground founder

Los Angeles • b. 1942-03-09

Biography

John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh singer, musician, composer, record producer and arranger. He is a founding member of the influential American rock band the Velvet Underground, with whom he recorded two studio albums. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styles of rock and avant-garde music. John Cale studied music at Goldsmiths College, University of London, before moving in 1963 to New York City, where he performed as part of the drone collective the Theatre of Eternal Music and formed the Velvet Underground. Since leaving the band in 1968, Cale has released seventeen solo studio albums, including Paris 1919 (1973) which is retrospectively considered to be his masterpiece, Fear (1974), Slow Dazzle (1975) and Music for a New Society (1982). In 1990, he collaborated with Velvet Underground co-founder Lou Reed on Songs for Drella which was a tribute for their mentor Andy Warhol. Cale has worked as a record producer on studio albums by artists including Nico, the Stooges, the Modern Lovers, Patti Smith, Squeeze, Happy Mondays and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Cale was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Velvet Underground in 1996.

Bio from Wikipedia